Movistar Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales has a half-second advantage over the MotoGP pack after three free practice sessions at the Qatar MotoGP round and is also a long way ahead in terms of race distance pace but says he is still looking for a little more grip from the desert track.

Vinales’ time from yesterday is still the benchmark and he had to pick himself up from his first crash in the best part of a year but today managed to lap consistently in the 1’55s bracket while his main competition are only dipping in, mostly staying in the low 1’56s.

“The crash in FP3 was a big mistake on my part. Honestly, I was pushing and ran a little bit wide and it was at that point where you have to decide to run wide or try to go into the corner and I tried to go into the corner and lost the front. It was my mistake and I was angry with myself because I can’t tolerate mistakes, but I’m happy anyway because we had a really good pace today, even when the track conditions were not as good as yesterday,” said Vinales.

“It was very slippery but finally, when we got the tyre to work, we set many consistent 1’55 laps, so I’m quite happy about that. I didn’t feel so good on the bike on the soft tyre, so I didn’t push to the limit. I was trying to keep up a good pace. The bike is working great, we just have to improve the grip a little bit. Maybe today’s weather conditions and the rain added a bit of dust on the track, so we will have to check that tomorrow, but I’m happy overall, apart from the stupid mistake.”

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